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Is the president angry? You bet. Is he planning to punish the big bad banks? Well, maybe. The mid-terms will be an attempt to weave a story over who stands for Main Street, against Wall Street.

Like many a cliche, "It's the economy, stupid!" feels as dead as a door nail, flat as a pancake, through constant repetition. But the tired phrase from Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign is trotted out so often because it is so true.

But it is much easier for a challenger to make a meal out of the state of the economy than the man in charge. So team Obama have to work out how to turn what they are doing into news and turn the economic pain of many Americans into votes for his party in the mid-terms.

In a thoughtful and calm world, people might make judgements on whether policies work or not, and look at the alternatives. But strategists in the real work know voters like politicians who slay dragons, or at least give them a poke with a sharp spear.

Those sitting on a hoard of gold, shouldn't be surprised to be cast in the role of greedy monsters. : was the president "visibly angry" about the $10m plus bonuses that some bankers apparently plan to award themselves? "Absolutely", came the reply.

Such banks, he said, were "folks that contrive not to get it", they are not "listening to the American people". Still, unless Mr Obama starts throwing the furniture around, "visible anger" behind the White House curtains is not the stuff of headlines.

Attempts to take back some of that pile of treasure might do the trick.

"a fee on banks designed to recoup some of the cost taxpayers incurred in the bailout...the chief goal is a fee that is not easily passed along."

A tax on banks would be one way of grabbing the headlines and putting himself on the opposite side of the road to Wall Street. Then, suggest that none of the other available knights is quite as brave, indeed might rather be seen as a friend of the monster.

with Obama's advisor David Axelrod who says of Republicans:

"If they want to stand with the banks and the financial industries, and protect the status quo, then let them explain that in an election. If the party that over eight years turned a... surplus into the most significant growth in national debt by far in the history of the country and left this president with a $1.3tn deficit when he walked in the door and an economic crisis, let them campaign on fiscal integrity."

Expect to see the story fleshed out in the coming weeks.

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